We Will Be Alright
by FiresFromOurHearts
Summary: Cedric's death seems so recent and so far away, and Cho wanders Hogwarts without him, grieving and lost. And, despite the shadows wrapping themselves around her mind, finds herself not alone and in the light.


**Assignment #1 - ****Phytogeography****; Task #1 - Write a fic with the setting of a greenhouse. Written for the forum Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments). I somehow ended up researching greenhouses and looking at plants and honestly, I was planning for other characters to enter this and it just didn't happen.**

**Heads up - discussion of grieving (so, like, indirectly mentioned character death I guess?)**

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Pomona Sprout looks after all seven greenhouses of Hogwarts. Well, technically she looks after eight, but she cares for seven as a teacher. The last greenhouse is the one her office is in, officially, and where she keeps her not-so-official-plants.

It's all well and good to have greenhouses to teach and whatnot, but Pomona is the Herbology professor for a reason—and it isn't simply because she adores plants. She does adore them, there's no mistaking that. However, she's teaching Herbology because plants are soothing, quiet, in a way that humans rarely are. They come without expectations of any sort and don't care about anything so long as they are looked after. Some are testy and aggressive due to their nature, but they aren't hostile for no reason. They simply didn't care and Pomona loves them for that reason exactly.

Many of her students assumes she lives in the main castle and it is simply her office in the greenhouse, and, well, Pomona doesn't particularly enjoy laughing at people's pain but their confusion is rather funny considering how few of them have picked up on the fact that she doesn't—in fact—reside in the castle.

Her office takes up the first part of the greenhouse which is, like all the other greenhouses, charmed to be bigger on the inside. Down the back, behind a locked and warded door, rests her sleeping quarters. Between her office and her bedroom lies the unofficial eighth greenhouse.

It's full of plants that, for the most part, aren't of magic. There are arrowheads, water clovers, water lilies, yellow and water snowflakes, and mini cattails amongst other plants decorating the ponds. This time of year the asphodels, molies, aconites, peonies, orchards, and roses are flowering beautifully. Meanwhile, her climbing plants are continuing to try and reach the roof and form a flowering sky complete with passionflowers and honeysuckle plants amidst a range of others.

Pomona is seconds away from opening the door to her office when an instinct tugs at her to spin and look behind her. Not one to ignore her instincts—she had fought in a war, after all—she turns around. Her gaze catches on a familiar face with swollen red eyes and quivering lips. And, once again, Pomona is caught in grief that tangles itself around her legs like long grass.

"Cho, dear," she says softly, hesitating as the girl glances up at her; caught unaware. "Come inside, won't you?"

Cho pauses, but slips in before Pomona without a word. "Thank you," she says at long last, settling herself in one of the large comfortable armchairs in Pomona's office.

Pomona considers sitting herself in her office chair but, well, there's no easy way to talk about the obvious owl in the room. She decides against it, instead crossing to the painting of a badger. "Hufflepuff," she tells the badger, which raises its head, winks, and the painting swings inward.

"Professor Sprout?" Cho calls uncertainly behind her.

"This way," Pomona says, interjecting some cheer into her voice. "My office is all well and good, but sometimes there's nothing better than working with plants and lining your fingers with dirt. It really reminds you of what you have."

"Oh," Cho says quietly, entering the room behind Pomona—and she's not sure whether Cho's response is to her words or at the greenhouse its something.

Placing her hands on her hips, Pomona surveys her plants proudly. "Welcome to the unofficial greenhouse," she says. "You're always welcome here, just make sure someone knows where you are. There's nothing dangerous here and there's always something to do. One section needs to be fertilised and there are some plants that need to be repotted. Plus, some of the flowering plants need trimming to get rid of the dead heads and all that." She continues chattering away, handing Cho a pair of gloves and some pruning shears and sets her to work.

The task doesn't really require any instruction and Cho seems to focus her full attention on the plants with an intensity that Pomona understands more than anything else. When Pomona takes a break from talking to focus on repotting a plant that has decided it doesn't want to cooperate—and she really must get onto writing that article on the capacity of "muggle" plants to become something more when growing in ambience of magic—Cho speaks at long last.

"I miss him." The words are quiet, grief-ridden. And Pomona has nothing that will magically fix this, nothing that can take away grief, no advice that will solve everything. Instead, she places the plant amongst its neighbours, giving its leaves a sharp tap in warning, and turns to meet Cho's eyes—even though the student quickly looks down.

She understands grief, knows how it tangles itself like ivy around your lungs and hearts, with prickly thorns digging in deep and leaving behind cuts, knows how the firm ground beneath you turns to quicksand and you can do nothing but struggle and be pulled downwards. And Pomona didn't know she had to prepare for death either—Cedric should have been _safe._ There was no war going on. He had no reason to be in danger. And yet he had died. She will remember him, like she remembers all her other students, and she will remember how she failed him.

"I miss him too," she says. "And that's not going to change. We're always going to miss him and that's okay. That's normal. We're going to keep remembering him and we're going to keep moving as well. It isn't going to be like this always Cho. One day, in the future, you will think of him less and less—and that is healing. This is healing as well."

Cho sobs, loud and noisy and it is ugly. But Pomona knows that crying is often ugly, that grieving is ugly, that life is ugly at times. She gathers Cho in her arms and hugs her and wishes she could offer something more, wishes she could do something.

"You will be alright," she tells her student softly. And she's right. Cho will be alright—in time, in the future. It won't be right now or tomorrow or even next week, but it will happen. And Pomona will be alright in time as well. And it won't be perfect, of course it won't be, and it will never be fair, but they will be alright.

Sniffing, Cho draws back and rubs her eyes, trying to erase signs of tears. "Are you certain?"

Pomona smiles, softly, sadly, kindly. And she believes in hard work, in choices, in trying, in determination, and so she says, "I think that if we want it to be, it will eventually be." And Cho, with quivering lips, manages to smile back.


End file.
